State lawmakers OK $96.3 billion budget

$96.3 billion spending plan OKd by legislators is a sign of the financial turnaround

Updated 9:14 pm, Friday, June 14, 2013

Sacramento --

The California Legislature on Friday easily passed a spending plan for the new fiscal year, hailing the budget as a symbol of the turnaround in the state's finances from the dark days of multibillion-dollar deficits.

Lawmakers approved $96.3 billion in spending from the general fund, the state's main checking account that pays for public education, prisons and health and human services, along with about $50 billion in spending from bonds and from special funds that pay for such things as improvement to roads, bridges and water systems. There is a $1.1 billion reserve.

Among the major features of the new budget, which Gov. Jerry Brown already has said he supports, are:

-- A new formula for school funding that awards additional money to school districts with high concentrations of English-language learners and impoverished students.

-- A significant increase in funding for mental health services that will help connect mentally ill people with available services.

-- The partial restoration of dental care for adults in the Medi-Cal system.

Lawmakers expect to return to the Capitol on Saturday to approve some remaining pieces of legislation that would seal the budget deal.

Holding up a clear glass of water on the Assembly floor, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, said, "I look at this and see a glass that is more than half full. This is a great budget for Californians."

'The right direction'

"That means every problem can't be solved in this budget, but we are taking steps in the right direction, meaningful steps in the right direction," he said.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, called the plan "the most positive and encouraging budget experience I've had in my 11 years at the Capitol."

Although Democrats celebrated the plan, they said they would have liked to have done more to restore funding to services that were cut in recent years.

The plan failed to win bipartisan support, though the education funding change received unanimous bipartisan support in the Senate.

Republicans, who were essentially uninvolved in the process except for being part of committee hearings, said Democrats were approving too much in spending and said the state was being set up for another boom-and-bust budget cycle in coming years.

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, said she was voting against the process by which the budget was crafted. She said she wanted "a process that is democratic, not simply done by Democrats."

Other Republicans said that while Democrats approved modest spending increases for the next fiscal year, they predicted the costs would rise substantially.

"With this budget, we have positioned ourselves perfectly to repeat the mistakes of the past," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo (Ventura County), who is vice chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. "We are about to adopt a spending plan that is, in the long term, unsustainable."

Quick passage

While the partisan rhetoric was much the same as in past years, the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 was the first in years that didn't involve eliminating a deficit. After initial speeches from members of both parties on the merits or deficiencies of the plan, the bills that make up the budget passed quickly without extensive debate.

But several of what are known as "trailer bills," which outline exactly how money will be spent, weren't available until late Thursday night and the Legislature has a policy of having bills in print at least 24 hours before they are voted on. That pushed the votes on some of the pieces, including an expansion of Medi-Cal as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, to Saturday.

In addition to the new spending, the budget includes a $2.2 billion reduction of what Brown has called the "wall of debt" of money borrowed over past budgets, going back more than a decade. In addition, schools will get $2 billion in payments that were delayed to save cash the previous few years.

One somewhat controversial piece among Democrats was the provision that some argued allows local officials to stop complying with the California Public Records Act. But Leno argued that it was more of a technical change that would save the state millions and it was approved.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.